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Massive Star Burps, Then Explodes

Posted by Zonk on from the oof-excuse-me dept.

gollum123 writes with a link to the Berkley site about an impressive star explosion that took place some tens of millions of years ago. We first caught sight of it in 2004, when there was a bright outburst, ahead of a massive supernova. "All the observations suggest that the supernova's blast wave took only a few weeks to reach the shell of material ejected two years earlier, which did not have time to drift very far from the star. As the wave smashed into the ejecta, it heated the gas to millions of degrees, hot enough to emit copious X-rays. The Swift satellite saw the supernova continue to brighten in X-rays for 100 days, something that has never been seen before in a supernova. All supernovae previously observed in X-rays have started off bright and then quickly faded to invisibility."

30 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. supernova burps by Uksi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Interesting older article on supernova burps.

    1. Re:supernova burps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      In other news, Uranus farts, then soils it's rings. Details at 11.

  2. The question that leaves me with is... by jimstapleton · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder what it ate? I hope it wasn't the fish...

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    1. Re:The question that leaves me with is... by darjen · · Score: 2, Funny

      I wonder what it ate? I hope it wasn't the fish...
      And there's no mention of it saying "excuse me" afterwards. I guess a little politeness is too much to ask from an exploding star...
    2. Re:The question that leaves me with is... by Trails · · Score: 3, Funny

      The star exploded after eating a mint. This surprised most astronomers, since the mint was wafer thin.

    3. Re:The question that leaves me with is... by Columcille · · Score: 2, Funny

      some of that tainted dog food, I'm sure.

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  3. How do we know it wasnt a fart? by krbvroc1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did the White House force the scientists to change their qualified 'fart' into a 'burb'? Investigations are needed.

    Also, is there a term for Astronomers such as the one we use called 'Anthropomorphism?'

    1. Re:How do we know it wasnt a fart? by krbvroc1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is this a troll? Its supposed to be funny. All these Astronomers describe their 'work product' with Antrhopomorphic terms, add 'pretty colors' to their space images, etc. Apparently you guys have no sense of humor either!

  4. Title misleading. by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Phew. Before I RTFA'd, I thought they were talking about Rosie O'Donnell....

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  5. But monsieur.... by qazxswedc · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's just a wafer-thin mint!

  6. Eta Carinae Next? by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Informative

    Eta Carinae could go any time and it's only 7,500 to 8,000 LY away.

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    1. Re:Eta Carinae Next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean it could have gone any time? I mean, if it exploded 7000 years ago we'd still not have seen the explosion, and wouldn't for another several hundred years.

    2. Re:Eta Carinae Next? by operagost · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You mean it could have gone at any time...

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    3. Re:Eta Carinae Next? by alienmole · · Score: 3, Interesting

      By all estimates I've seen, we're safe from Eta Carinae going nova. See e.g. Earth likely spared from one form of cosmic doom (NASA), which says that a supernova would need to be within 26 light years of Earth to cause significant damage.

  7. This happens to me all the time.. by Cristofori42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    4) The star finally runs out of fuel and the core collapses

    That's like a segmentation fault right?

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    1. Re:This happens to me all the time.. by Anon-Admin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sounds more like a core dump.

    2. Re:This happens to me all the time.. by x2A · · Score: 2

      No you're thinking of uranus.

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  8. Oops by aktzin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this what Sir Arthur C. Clarke meant when he said that supernovae may be "industrial accidents"?

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  9. That's what I call old news. by tanguyr · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...impressive star explosion that took place some tens of millions of years ago...

    Oooooooold news!

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  10. Burps, then Explodes? by wildsurf · · Score: 3, Funny

    "After dinner mint, sir?"

    "Oh, I couldn't eat another bite..."

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  11. Massive star burps, explodes... by diesel66 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I really don't know if I'd call Rosie O'Donnell a star...

    At least I can start watching The View again. (Oh, boy!)

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  12. Ejecta, eh? by bubbl07 · · Score: 2, Funny

    As the wave smashed into the ejecta, it heated the gas to millions of degrees, hot enough to emit copious X-rays.
    Strange, that usually happens when my ejecta smashes into something else, not the other way around...

    Oh wait...
  13. Intriguing Alternate Possibilities by StefanJ · · Score: 4, Funny

    [ ] G'Thak Meld testing out new nova bomb. Gas / dust shell was actually a cloud of mothballed habitats and light collectors towed to the system to see how blast would effect a dyson shphere.

    [ ] Elder Race equivalent of Jackson Pollock at work.

    [ ] Young Earth creationists are right; like anything more distant that 6,000 LY, this was actually elaborate illusion created by God.

    [ ] Extremem upper limit of Mentos / Diet Pepsi reaction now known.

    Stefan

    Download The MacGuffin Alphabet.

  14. Well... by Overzeetop · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...this is slashdot, after all.

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  15. Huh? by SirKron · · Score: 2, Insightful
    about an impressive star explosion that took place some tens of millions of years ago

    But my priest told me God made the universe 10,000 years ago. How can that be? Maybe it exploded in the universe we had previous to ours, you know, the one with the dinosaurs.

    1. Re:Huh? by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 3, Funny

      Before you try to critisize a religion or hell even a topic you should at least have some understanding of it.

      And hurtling towards us from the decaying supernova remnants is a probe with a single mysterious inscription on the side:

      "You must be new here."

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  16. Re:Things that happened in 2006 happened in 2006 by Akaihiryuu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because it *did* happen that long ago. It just took the light from the supernova that long to reach us, so that we could see it.

  17. Re:Things that happened in 2006 happened in 2006 by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Given that all inertial frames are equally good, why not just pick the one that's popular with readers of the article? Seems fair to me, after all you need some coordinate system if you're going to communicate physics. In fact, I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "the one that actually makes a tiny bit of sense". The only one I can think of is an inertial frame of the supernova itself. In that frame, here and now is also tens of millions of years later than when the supernova happened. But maybe you have another one in mind.

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  18. Re:Faster than light travel? by Rick+Genter · · Score: 2, Informative

    I did a little calculating. At 10 million miles per hour, that means the pieces of the star are traveling at about 15 times the speed of light.


    You did your calculations wrong.

    c is approximately 186,282 miles per second. That translates to over 670 million miles per hour. 10 million miles per hour is only about 1.5% of lightspeed.
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  19. the plans by f1055man · · Score: 2, Funny

    for the hyperspace bypass have been on public display for some time now. They should have taken a greater interest in galactic affairs.

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